Saakashvili’s ally in Odessa indicted by Georgia

TBILISI, DFWatch–The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia (POG) has indicted a former Georgian official and Odessa governor confidant in Ukraine for directing a brutal dispersal of opposition rally back in 2011.

Gia Lortkipanidze, a deputy of then omnipotent interior minister, Vano Merabishvili, was charged for exceeding his official power. Two days earlier four other ex-officials had been indicted for the same charges.

Lortkipanidze wasn’t charged with the four, yet was invited to POG for interrogation, which he declined.

Gia Lortkipanidze is a head of police in Ukraine’s Odessa region, and the closest ally of his former boss Mikheil Saakashvili, who is the governor.

According to the statement released by the POG Thursday, Gia Lortkipanidze was assigned with the task to disperse the anti-government rally personally by Vano Merabishvili, who is in the prison for the same and some other charges.

Previously, head of Constitutional Security Department (Kudi) was named as a person who directed the brutal dispersal, which resulted in the death of, at least, two protesters. The third person, a policeman died in a car crash when trying to thwart escape of Nino Burjanadze’s cortege out of the scene. Although, according to GYLA report, actually five people died during those events.

However, according to the POG’s press release, only two people died, 250 injured and 800 were detained.

Nino Burjanadze was Georgia’s acting president and once Saakashvili’s ally. She was an organizer and a leader of May, 2011 protest rallies.